


scorpion honey

by sxldato



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Emotional Constipation, Episode: s02e11 Playthings, Gen, Hangover, Headaches & Migraines, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mother Hen Dean, Protective Older Brothers, Vomiting, dean has a hardcore mother complex imo, forever my favorite tag tbh, they're both so screwed up holy cow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 08:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5701555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxldato/pseuds/sxldato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“I need you to watch out for me.”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“Yeah, I always do.” </em>
  <br/>
  <em>“No, no no no no-- I need you to <strong>watch out</strong> for me, alright?”</em>
</p><p>An extension of Sam's brief hangover in "Playthings," because there needed to be more of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	scorpion honey

**Author's Note:**

> ((happy 50th work to me yay))  
> on dean's mother complex before people tell me i'm wrong--  
> "At the core of any mother complex is … a collective image of nourishment and security on the one hand, and devouring possessiveness on the other." – Daryl Sharp  
> ... are y'all picking up what i'm putting down or  
> the only other thing i have to say is that this is gross and it was on my to-do list for a long-ass time and i have finally done it, i've finally gone back to writing self-indulgent fuckery, this is my true craft  
> beta'd. i'm a good samaritan  
> the title is from a passage in _Still Life with Woodpecker_ by Tom Robbins, and it's one of his many descriptions for tequila, which felt relevant

Dean has only seen Sam drunk a handful of times, but he’s got a general idea of how it goes. As big as his little brother has grown, as broad-shouldered and bullheaded as he’s become, he can’t hold his liquor worth shit. Under any other circumstance, it’s fine, because Sam is a happy drunk; he loosens up for a few hours, actually has a good time.

Sam is not a happy drunk tonight. It’s honestly hard to look at. Dean never likes seeing Sam cry, but this is so much worse. Sam’s eyes are hazy and bloodshot as they well up with tears, and he’s unsteady on his feet, and he’s begging for a mercy-kill, and Dean wants to kick the asses of anybody and everybody who contributed towards Sam feeling this way about himself.

Is this _his_ fault? he thinks, as he wanders about the inn’s dimly lit hallways. Had there been a moment where he’d hurt Sam to such a degree, to make him feel so awful on the inside? He doesn’t think so-- and he hopes to God he’s right-- but he should’ve known. Either he’s a shitty brother or he’s just plain stupid to not have noticed the damage, to not have recognized the warning signs for hurricanes of self-doubt tearing up Sam’s head. He should have seen, should have _done_ something about it.

He drops by the room to check on Sam and his motionless form sprawled out on the bed. He helps Sam out of his overshirt, pants, and shoes, and sets a glass of water and two Advil on the bedside table.

He can at least do something about _this._ The physical symptoms are always easier to manage.

-

At quarter to six in the morning, a muffled groan from the other bed rouses Dean out of sleep. Only partially conscious, he watches through half-lidded eyes as Sam lurches upright and staggers to the adjoining bathroom.

“Sammy?” Dean calls out, but it ends up being more of a mumble into his pillow. He doesn’t get a response, unless he counts the sounds of pained retching and the echo of liquid hitting porcelain as one, which he doesn’t.

Damn, he’s gonna have to get up.

He lingers outside the bathroom door, waiting for a break between Sam’s puking to speak. Except then the dry-heaves start, and Dean’s own gut clenches in sympathy, and he’s stepping into the tiny bathroom before he can give it a second thought.

Sam is a big guy; Dean isn’t sure when that happened (somewhere between the night Sam left and the night Dean roped him into all of this again), but that’s how it is. Sam can easily dwarf anybody, Dean included. And sure, that’s a bit of a blow to Dean’s masculinity, but more than anything it makes him happy. His baby brother grew up big and strong and _healthy_ , and that was _Dean’s_ doing, not John’s or Pastor Jim’s or Bobby’s. That’s one of Dean’s biggest sources of pride-- looking at Sam and seeing how far he’s come from a short and scrawny kid with hair that fell in his eyes.

Now, though, Sam doesn’t look big. Even on his knees with his legs stretched out behind him, his broad shoulders straining against the sheer fabric of his undershirt, and his hands gripping the toilet bowl so tight Dean thinks it might break, Sam looks small and fragile. Maybe it’s the way Dean can see his muscles contracting with each unproductive heave, or the sweat beading on his face, or the chills rippling down his spine. Whatever it is, it's a trigger; seeing Sam hurting, seeing him weak and sick and _upset,_ itsets off a primal instinct in Dean. One that screams at him to protect, to nurture, to act as a shield. One that had been forged in his heart at the tender age of four when he carried Sam out of their burning house.

Sam retches again, nothing but a dribble of spit running down his chin, and Dean needs to fix this.

“Hey, hey--” He kneels down, scoots closer to brace Sam with his hip, and holds him by the nape of his neck. “Take it easy, relax.”

Sam shakes his head and leans farther over the bowl, supporting his head on his forearm as he draws in a couple uneven breaths.

“You’re not gonna relax?” Sam hates vomiting more than anything, and he’s got to have a headache that rivals those psychic migraines, and yet he’s as stubborn as he's always been. “Alright, go ahead, put a strain on yourself.”

A noise just short of a sob comes from the back of Sam’s throat, and Dean regrets being so blunt this early in the game. They’re brothers, they’re supposed to be rough with one another and push each other around and tease, and most of the time that’s okay. But sometimes Sam just can’t take it like he usually does, and sometimes Dean forgets.

“I can’t,” Sam whines, echoing Dean’s thoughts. “I can’t relax, it’s still in me, I can’t…”

Whether Sam is alluding to the liquor he’d drunk the night before or the inherent evil that their father had believed is in him, Dean doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know.

Sam takes a breath and stiffens, spine arching as a belch forces itself out on the heels of an aborted gag, and Dean has no idea how to solve this. Any of it.

“Just…” Dean puts both hands on Sam’s shoulders and eases them down, then moving to rub Sam’s back in long smooth sweeps. “Just try not to tense up. It won’t hurt as much if your muscles are slack. You think you can do that for me?”

After a moment, Sam nods, and the change in his posture is noticeable right away.

“Want…” Sam starts and then cuts himself off to swallow hard. “Wanna be alone.”

Dean’s heart sinks to somewhere around his spleen, but he can’t say no to Sam, not when Sam is using those wet pleading eyes that remind Dean of a lost puppy.

“Okay,” Dean says, “okay.”

He grants Sam some privacy, throws on his jacket, and heads out to get coffee.

-

He’s given Sam a solid two hours to regroup, and he knows how things will go when he gets back; Sam will be humiliated, Sam will refuse to meet Dean’s gaze because for some reason it doesn’t occur to Sam that Dean has been exactly where he is this morning, and Sam-- true to Winchester tradition-- will refuse to talk about it.

(Sam used to be more open about how he felt, but then John died and a part of Sam shut itself away, and Dean wishes he could understand why.)

They’re new circumstances, but curing Sam of embarrassment and getting him to feel even a _little_ more okay is an old game; and it’s one that Dean is an expert at winning by method of "make light of everything unless someone's dying."

So when he finally returns to the room, freshly caffeinated with a bag of convenience-store-grade groceries, he greets his brother with a smug “How you feelin, Sammy?” and smirks at the dull groan he gets in response.

“I guess mixing whiskey and jaeger wasn’t such a gangbuster idea, was it?” He continues, shrugging off his coat and letting it hang on the foot of the bed frame.

A thought strikes him, that if he’s lucky (Winchesters are rarely lucky), Sam has forgotten their conversation from the night before. If he’s _really_ lucky (even though he’s never been _really_ lucky, other than that one time in tenth grade with Angelica Lowenstein), those things Sam said last night will end up being nothing more than the ramblings of a kid with too much alcohol in his system. Nothing of substance, nothing Dean actually has to _keep_ his promise for.

“I’ll bet you don’t remember a thing from last night, do you?”

“No, I can still taste tequila.” Sam’s voice is breathy and strained, and his words are quickly followed by another groan.

Dean steals a glance at the bedside table; the Advil are gone and the glass of water is empty. But Sam is still in the bathroom and he sounds damn exhausted, so the chances that the meds stayed down are looking slim.

“You know, there’s a really good hangover remedy,” Dean says, keeping a shit-eating grin from appearing on his face even though his back is to the open door of the bathroom. “It’s a greasy pork sandwich served up in a dirty ashtray.”

The “ _oh,_ I hate you” that Sam manages just barely escapes the fate of dissolving into more retching, and Dean hears him spit into the toilet.

“I know you do.” That generic, lighthearted banter is such a fucking relief, and Dean finally turns and makes his way to the doorway of the bathroom. “Hey, turns out when Grandma Rose was a tyke, she had a Creole nanny who wore a hoodoo necklace-- _ugh_.”

The smell hits him full force now that he’s fully conscious, and Jesus _Christ_ , no wonder Sam is still feeling like garbage.

And Sam, who is holding himself up over the toilet bowl, obviously preparing himself for an umpteenth round of vomiting, is paying complete attention to what Dean is saying.

“So you think she taught Rose hoodoo?” Sam asks, hoarse and wavering, and Dean wants nothing more than to tuck Sam into bed and let him sleep this off, but he can’t. People’s lives are at stake, and Sam brought this on himself, and there’s only so much coddling Dean will allow himself to do in a situation like this.

“Yes I do.”

Sam nods to himself. “Alright.” With a dull clink from the porcelain, Sam plants a hand on the rim of the toilet and pushes himself upright. He’s unsteady on his feet, and Dean half-expects him to faceplant on the tile floor, but he doesn’t. “I think it’s time we talk to Rose, then.”

The sour smell turns from a slap in the face to a full-on punch in the lungs, and Dean turns to leave, hopefully for a place in the room with some breathable air. “You need to brush your teeth first.”

-

Greasy pork sandwich notwithstanding, Dean _does_ have a few tricks up his sleeve. But part of what he’s loved about working with Sam, as opposed to John, is that he hasn't had to worry about teaching Sam those tricks. He's never had to wake up and wonder whether or not Sam will be stumbling around, nursing a wicked hangover and flinching at the daylight. That had been John and Dean’s thing.

So watching Sam brush his teeth at the sink with his free hand clutching his head, looking pale and nauseated, is more than slightly unsettling.

The change in equilibrium in leaning over to spit must have aggravated the remaining sick feeling because Sam stays there, one arm curled around his stomach and the other planted firm on the counter with his toothbrush tight in his fist. His jaw hangs open as he waits for the gag that is surely right at the back of his throat.

Yeah, Dean’s been there before-- thinking you’ve got a grip on yourself and being dead wrong.

Sam left the water running, so Dean can’t hear him retch, but he can see the way Sam’s body lurches and the rising tautness in his shoulder blades.

“You never do anything by halves, huh?” Dean says, steeling himself before approaching his trembling little brother and putting a hand on his spine, willing the tension in Sam to ease. When Sam rocks forward with another gag, Dean holds Sam by his forehead to keep him upright. “Give it a minute, you’re okay.”

Sam’s face is flushed, which is weird because Sam isn’t sick, and Dean can always tell when there’s a fever in the works.

It’s when tears start dripping into the sink that Dean simultaneously thinks _“yeah, that’s about right”_ and _“oh, shit.”_

“Sammy--”

“I’m sorry,” Sam chokes, releasing his hold on his stomach to scrub the wetness from his cheeks. “I’m sorry, I didn’t-- I just wanted to stop feeling so bad, I wanted to-- to stop being scared…”

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that Sam is talking about last night’s bender, and Dean might have not gone to college, but he has a GED.

Does he want to understand what the fuck is going on with his baby brother? Absolutely. Does that mean he's gung-ho for talking about the horribly disturbing things Sam said a mere eight hours ago? Absolutely not.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Dean says, reaching to turn off the faucet and then taking the toothbrush from Sam’s hand. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, you hear me? This blows, I get it, but I’m gonna make it better.”

Sam looks like there are a dozen more things he wants to say, but he nods warily and lets Dean guide him back into the main room. He’s shaking in Dean’s grip, and when he sits down on the edge of the bed he shoves his hands between his knees to stop the tremors.

“I feel like crap,” Sam croaks.

“I know, I know you do,” Dean assures him, grabbing the brown paper bag from where he’d dropped it off by the door. “And I promise this stuff is gonna help.”

“If you tell me I have to drink more, I _will_ throw up on you.”

“That ‘hair of the dog’ trick is certified bullshit, trust me.” Dean pulls out a clear bottle-- one with an obnoxious blue cap and a translucent orange liquid sloshing inside-- and Sam pales.

“Dean, I can’t--”

“You gotta.”

“It won’t stay down.”

“Pedialyte is like the blood of Christ when you’re hungover. You’re not gonna puke it up.”

Sam doesn’t look convinced, and Dean dumps out the rest of the groceries on the floor, leaving the brown bag empty. “Then this’ll be right here, just in case.”

Dean breaks the seal on the bottle, fills the glass from the bedside table halfway, and hands it to Sam. “Drink. Slowly.”

Sam, to his credit, does as he’s told. Whether it’s because they’ve got a job to finish or because he’s too tired to put up a fight, it doesn’t really matter. He sets the glass down when he’s done and palms his stomach, eyeing the bag like he’s judging how fast he’ll need to move to get to it. His shoulders hitch forward and he hiccups into his hand.

“You’re fine,” Dean tells him, wishing Sam would stop getting riled up to the point of making himself sick. “Sam, look at me-- you’re _fine_.”

Sam keeps his hand over his mouth, the other gripping his knee, and breathes sharply through his nose. He’s clearly struggling to swallow; his clenched jaw, the deep furrow in his brow, and the dull burps that keep surfacing behind his fingers are enough evidence.

“You gotta chill out if you wanna stop feeling so bad,” Dean says. “C’mon, try and relax."

"I can't." Sam sounds frustrated almost to the point of tears, and Dean cannot let that happen.

"Hey, hey, none of that. Your stomach's just gonna get pissed off again if you get riled up." Dean leans over and brushes Sam's hair out of his eyes. "Just breathe, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Like the way you showed me on the airplane, remember?"

He succeeds in getting Sam to drop his hand, and Sam’s breathing begins to regulate itself. A bit of color even comes back to Sam’s face.

“See? I told you. Now sit tight for me.”

Dean sets the Tums aside in favor of the loaf of bread, a tiny jar of Skippy's peanut butter, and a blunt plastic knife.

“Hey, Dean?” The voice that rings out is quiet, tentative.

“Yeah.”

“I’m… I’m sorry you got stuck with this job.”

Dean had been busying himself with spreading a generous amount of peanut butter onto a slice of bread, but he stops now, pauses to meet Sam’s eyes even though he doesn't want to. “What’re you talking about?”

“ _This_ \-- taking care of your pain-in-the-ass little brother all the time because he’s a wreck, and never putting yourself first, and… Jesus, Dean, I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for all you put up with from me--”

“Hold on, hold on, let's back up for a second,” Dean cuts him off, because he knows if he doesn’t then there’s gonna be waterworks, and that wouldn’t do anything but embarrass Sam further and aggravate his headache. “First of all, I don’t do this for thanks. I don’t even do it because I’m _supposed_ to. You wanna know why I _really_ take care of my pain-in-the-ass little brother?”

Sam looks like he doesn’t want to know.

“I do it because you’re all I’ve got. Hell, you’re all I could possibly _need_ in this shit-show-- more than any other hunter, more than Dad.”

Sam shakes his head, appalled. “N-no, you can’t say that--”

“Yes, I can.” Dean sticks the knife into the jar of peanut butter and smears more of it onto the piece of bread. “At the end of the day, it's always come down to the both of us, fighting the good fight, and that’s honestly more than enough for me.”

Sam isn’t crying, but his eyes are bloodshot and watery, and Dean won't be able to deal with that on top of the painfully emasculating moment they’re having right now. He’s gotta wrap this up real quick. And then maybe go out and punch something.

“I wanna take care of you because I care _about_ you, Sam. And you’re not a wreck, alright? You’re scary smart and insanely talented. So what if you got a few screws loose? All great minds are a little nuts, and that’s totally okay. Especially when you’ve got an awesome big brother to look out for you.”

Sam manages a weak and wobbly smile, and Dean sets the jar of peanut butter aside before folding the piece of bread over on itself and presenting it to Sam.

“This,” he announces, “is a hangover taco. It’s good for you.”

-

For how crappy Sam had looked this morning, his recovery time is damn impressive; after eating the peanut butter sandwich and cleaning himself up some more, he’s reverted to his normal self and dives back into the case headfirst. Despite wanting to avoid potentially overemotional conversations at all costs, Dean had kind of been preparing to talk about what Sam had said the night before. But that’s obviously not happening today.

As Dean keeps watch while Sam picks the lock on Rose’s door, he wonders how many things are going on in Sam’s head that he doesn’t know about. He decides that at some point, _soon_ , they're gonna have to talk about it.

Sam unlocks the door and the two of them step inside the room.

And they _will_ talk about it, Dean promises himself. Another time.

**Author's Note:**

> a few things, just as an aside:  
> \- under no circumstances should you leave a drunk unconscious person alone  
> \- taking Advil on an empty stomach can cause your stomach to bleed  
> \- Dean doesn't bring Sam coffee because caffeine only brings more chemicals to the party, and that's not what you want when you're hungover as fuck. (the only real benefit from drinking coffee during a hangover is preventing the additional headache from caffeine withdrawal)  
> \- people think they're being sly when they buy pedialyte for hangovers because it just looks like they're taking care of a sick kid (which, in Dean's defense, he kind of is). it's not sly. you're hungover. we all know.  
> \- i found the the "hangover taco" on a thread on reddit about easing nausea from hangovers. i've never tried it (because i've never been hungover, let alone utterly sick and miserable the way sam is) but the source was from a guy who'd been an alcoholic for eight years, so i think it's a pretty credible source


End file.
